Here is some food for thought as we get ready to gobble down some turkey this Thanksgiving: A new $25 million plant under construction in North Carolina will convert turkey waste into energy. Prestage AgEnergy will use 55,000 tons of turkey litter a year to produce the equivalent of 95 million kilowatt hours of electricity and feed that renewable electricity back to the grid.

North Carolina has a lot of turkey waste on hand – it ranks second in the nation behind Minnesota in turkey production. In light of its prolific turkey farming, in 2007, the state passed an energy policy mandate that requires utilities to use a small amount of poultry waste-generated power. This will not be the first turkey-waste energy plant – Minnesota currently has a 55-megawat power plant designed to burn poultry waste as its primary fuel. However, the new North Carolina plant will reportedly be the first facility designed to run on 100-percent turkey waste.

Local reporting on the Prestage AgEnergy plant can be found here and here.